BLM buys last piece of Devil's Canyon Ranch in Wyoming

The Bureau of Land Management has bought 3,000 acres of the former Devil’s Canyon Ranch to complete the public acquisition of the scenic property in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. The ranch was subject to a bitter dispute more than a decade ago when its former owners closed a road through the property. That cut off access for several years to 20,000 acres of BLM and U.S. Forest Service land. The BLM on Thursday paid $2 million for the final piece of the ranch along the Montana border. It was sold by the Trust for Public Land, which bought the 11,000-acre property in 2003 to put into public ownership. In 2003, after the Trust for Public Lands had taken hold of the property, the late U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas helped arrange $4 million in federal funds to buy the initial 8,000 acres. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation also contributed to that deal. Money for last week’s purchase came from the federal government’s Land and Water Conservation Fund. The BLM says the land will be managed as part of the Craig Thomas Little Mountain Special Management Area...more